Celine Arnold: The (Kiwi) Swiss Miss talks Interski…

As well as the core NZSIA team, New Zealand was extremely well represented at Interski. Here’s an article from NZSIA trainer (and Swiss demo team member:-)) Celine Arnold, truly one of the stars of Interski 2015 – not that she would ever admit it!

Celine with fellow Interskiers

My Interski Experience

I see Interski as a highlight in the career of a ski instructor, just like an athlete participating at the Olympic Games. In 2003 I participated at the opening ceremony in Crans Montana in Switzerland, and then in 2011 went for a week holiday to St-Anton in Austria to follow a lot of workshops, and finally this year, participated as a demo team member to represent Switzerland in Argentina.

We left from Zürich airport for a long trip by plane to Madrid then Buenos Aires and finally Ushuaia. My first impression that same day was amazing mountains, massive pieces of meat, good wine and loads of dogs everywhere J!

We had a week of winter conditions; it was beautiful. A bit harder for the team mates as they has come from the warmest swiss summer ever with an average of 30-35 degrees every day!

During the northern winter, we had five camps to prepare ourselves for the demos and on snow presentation. You can checkout our preparations on YouTube; “Road to Ushuaia”:

After a 3 month break, our first day of training up the mountain went really well which then allowed us to have a touristy time to visit the ski resort with their amazing views.

The day of the Swiss presentation, It had snowed quite a lot. That delayed the programme by a little bit to allow all the teams to get on the mountain and see the demos, then workshops and dual slalom. Our demos didn’t go as well as the training day as there was fresh snow on the hill and the skiing was slower and more challenging, but still great fun to ski a beautiful hill and living a great atmosphere with the other teams at the top of the demo hill.

Our workshop presentation, on snow and indoor, was on the “Swiss Snow Academy”, it’s a programme that has been developing since 2012. All the Swiss Ski School directors met in Saas-Fee, and asked “Swiss Snowsports” an equivalent of “Snowsport New Zealand”, to build a programme to keep teenagers for longer in ski schools, and allow them when they are 18yo, to have the technical skills and motivation to start their ski instructor’s qualification and work in a ski school.

There are 3 different categories that the teenagers can focus on, depending on their interest such as; Freeride, Freestyle or Race, have a look below at the link, to get an idea on what we do with these keen skiers:

And to finish here’s a few Highlights of my first Interski as a demo team member:

4th place in the GS, behind ex world cup races and Olympian medallist

1st place in the dual slalom team event. Thanks to NZSKI for organising Winter Classic ski race, was great training

Swiss Team holiday Skiing in Bariloche with almost the whole crew wearing an NZSIA cap or NZ demo team uniform

Enjoying spending time with a great team

Amazing views and really nice people

Great experience presenting to other countries and following the workshops